Medicaid under Obamacare in Ohio

[werepossum]

Thought this was interesting. http://mediatrackers.org/ohio/2014/08/14/kasichcare-enrollment-hits-92-july-2015-estimate

The gist of the article is somewhat negative, pointing out that enrollment has vastly exceeded official expectations. (Not surprisingly, people go for valuable free stuff quickly.) Nonetheless, it also perhaps unwittingly points to a third of a million Ohioans now having Medicaid, most of whom are eligible only because of Ohio's embrace of Obamacare. A brief Google search didn't show me any evidence that Ohio is fiscally failing or that the federal government is fiscally failing more, so I'm tentatively assuming that this is not breaking the budget for either.

This is interesting for a number of reasons. Kasich is honestly fiscally conservative, was a huge fiscal hawk in Congress to the point of being the biggest force in balancing the budget (albeit only by counting excess payroll tax receipts) in my opinion, campaigned against the expansion, implemented the expansion by executive order, and yet this has been Obamacare's biggest red state success to date. And so far, looks to me like it's working reasonably well. Medicaid isn't much, but it can be the difference between solvency and bankruptcy, or between having that sore spot identified as Stage One cancer and having that weeping wound that used to be just a sore spot identified as Stage Four cancer.

Given that the federal government is already spending money like a drunken sailor, seems to me it's going to be difficult to argue against such state expansions unless this takes down Ohio. If it continues to be successful, this may also give Kasich Presidential chops in 2016 as the non-partisan pragmatist everyone claims to want.

Last month 338,707 Ohioans were enrolled in Medicaid under Obamacare, exceeding 92 percent of the July 2015 enrollment projected by Governor John Kasich.

In yesterday’s Ohio Department of Medicaid caseload release for July, June enrollment was revised upward to 328,069 from the 285,553 first reported.

May enrollment, initially reported as 243,230 and then revised to 274,630 last month, was revised to 309,562 in the July caseload report.

At 247,208, the state’s fiscal year 2014 average Obamacare Medicaid enrollment is greater than the initial figure reported for the fifth month of the program. As more Ohioans are added retroactively, July 2014 enrollment is all but certain to surpass the 366,000 Gov. Kasich’s Office of Health Transformation projected for July 2015.

Kasich, a Republican, unilaterally enacted the Obamacare Medicaid expansion last fall after months of unsuccessful attempts to convince the Ohio General Assembly that the program was a Christian opportunity to use “Ohio’s tax dollars” to help the poor and boost the state economy.

The graph below shows Ohio Medicaid enrollment for those Kasich made eligible under Obamacare, as reported yesterday by the Ohio Department of Medicaid.

Graphs and additional text at the link.